The Red Wedding (RoosterTeeth & Achievement Hunter Edition)
by My Seven Deadly Sins
Summary: The Red Wedding is a huge and infamous role in George R.R. Martin's - A Storm of Swords. However, the characters in this chapter have been changed to those of the RoosterTeeth/Achievement Hunter staff. I hope you enjoy! (Contains Spoilers)


The drums pounding again, pounding and pounding and pounding.

Barbara Dunkelman, who seemed to be the only woman left in the hall besides Lindsay, stepped up behind Gustavo Sorola, and touched him lightly on the arm as she said something in his ear. Gustavo wrenched himself away from her with unseemly violence. "No," he said loudly. "I'm done with dancing for the nonce." Barbara paled and turned away.

Lindsay got slowly to her feet. _What just happened there? _Doubt gripped her heart, where an instant before had been only weariness. _It is nothing, _she tried to tell herself, _you are seeing grumkins in the woodpile, you are becoming an old silly woman sick with grief and fear. _But something must have shown on her face.

Even Ser Jack Pattillo took note. "Is something amiss?" he asked, the leg of lamb in his hand.

She did not answer him. Instead she went after Gustavo Sorola. The players in the gallery had finally gotten both king and queen down to their name-day suits. With scarcely a moment's respite, they began to play a very different sort of song. No one sang the words, but Lindsay new "The Rains of Castamere" when she heard it. Gustavo was hurrying toward the door. She hurried faster, driven by the music. Six quick strides and she caught him. _And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low? _She grabbed Gustavo by the arm to turn him and went cold all over when she felt the iron rings beneath his silken sleeve.

Lindsay slapped him so hard she broke his lip. _Gavin, _she thought, _and Ray, Miles, all absent. And Arryn wept…_

Gustavo Sorola shoved her aside. The music drowned all other sound, echoing off the walls as if the stones themselves were playing. Michael gave Gustavo an angry look and moved to block his way…and staggered suddenly as a quarrel sprouted from his side, just beneath the shoulder. If he screamed then, the sound was swallowed by the pipes and horns and fiddles. Lindsay saw a second bolt pierce his leg, saw him fall. Up in the gallery, half the musicians had crossbows in their hands instead of drums or lutes. She ran toward her husband, until something punched in the small of the back and the hard stone floor came up to slap her.

"_Michael!" _she screamed.

She saw Jeremy Dooley wrestle a table off its trestles. Crossbow bolts thudded into the wood, one two three, as he flung it down on top of his king. Kerry Shawcross was ringed by Ramseys, their daggers rising and falling. Ser Jack Pattillo rose ponderously to his feet, holding his leg of lamb. A quarrel went in his open mouth and came out the back of his neck. Ser Jack crashed forward, knocking the table off its trestles and sending cups, flagons, trenchers, platters, turnips, beets, and wine bouncing, spilling and sliding across the floor.

Lindsay's back was on fire. _I have to reach him. _

Jeremy bludgeoned Ser Jon Risinger across the face with a leg of mutton. But when he reached for his sword belt a crossbow bolt drove him in the knees. _In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws. _She saw Adam Ellis cut down by Ser Joel Heymans. Chris Demarais was hamstrung by Matt Bragg as he was wrestling with Ser Kdin Jenzen._ And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours. _The crossbow took Kyle Taylor, Brandon Farmahini and half a dozen more.

Young Ser Aaron Marquis had seized Barbara Dunkelman by the arm, but Lindsay saw her grab up a flagon of wine with her other hand, smash it full in his face, and run for the door. It flew open before she reached it. Ser Burnie Burns pushed into the hall, clad in steel from helm to heel. A dozen Ramsey men-at-arms packed the door behind him. They were armed with heavy long axes.

"_Mercy!" _Lindsay cried, but horns and drums and the clash of steel smothered her plea. Ser Burnie buried the head of his axe in Barbara's stomach. By then men were pouring in the other doors as well, mailed men in shaggy fur cloaks with steel in their hands. _Northmen! _She took them for rescue for half a heartbeat, till one of them struck Jeremy's head off with two huge blows of his axe. Hope blew out like a candle in a storm.

In the midst of slaughter, the Lord of the Crossing sat on his carved oaken throne, watching greedily.

There was a dagger on the floor a few feet away. Perhaps it had skittered there when Jeremy knocked the table off its trestles, or perhaps it had fallen from the hand of some dying man. Lindsay crawled toward it. Her limbs were leaden, and the taste of blood was in her mouth. _I will kill Geoffrey Ramsey, _she told herself. Griffon was closer to the knife, hiding under a table, but she only cringed as she snatched up the blade. _I can kill the old man, I can do that much at least. _

Then the tabletop that Jeremy had flung over Michael shifted, and her husband struggled to his knees. He had an arrow in his side, a second in his leg, and a third through his chest. Lord Geoffrey raised a hand, and the music stopped, all but one drum. Lindsay heard the crash of distant battle, and closer the wild howling of a wolf. _Grey Wind, _she remembered too late.

"_Heh,"_ Lord Geoffrey cackled at Michael. "The King of the North arises. Seems we killed some of your men, your grace. Oh, but I'll make you an _apology_, that will mend them all again!"

Lindsay grabbed a handful of Griffon's blonde hair and dragged her out of her hiding place. "Lord Geoffrey!" she shouted. "_LORD GEOFFREY!" _

The drum beat slow and sonorous, _doom boom doom. _

"Enough," said Lindsay. "_Enough_, I say. You have repaid betrayal with betrayal, let it end." When she pressed the dagger to Griffon's throat, the memory of Ray's sickroom came back to her, with the feel of steel at her throat.

The drum went _boom doom boom doom boom doom._

"Please," she said. "He is my husband. My first husband, and my last. Let him go. Let him go and I swear we will forget this…forget all you've done here. I swear it by the old gods and new, we…we will take no vengeance…"

Lord Geoffrey peered at her in mistrust. "Only a fool would believe such a blather. Do you take me for a fool, my lady?"

"I take you for a husband. Keep me for a hostage, Hullum as well if you haven't already killed him. But let Michael go."

"No." Michael's voice was a whisper faint. "Lindsay, no…"

"Yes. Michael, get up. Get up and walk out, please. _Please,_ save yourself. If not for me, for Gavin."

"Gavin?" Michael grabbed the edge of the table and forced himself to stand. "Lindsay," he said. "Grey Wind…"

"Go to him. Now. Michael, _walk out of here._"

Lord Geoffrey snorted. "And why would I let him do that?"

She pressed the blade deeper into Griffon's throat. She rolled her eyes at her in mute appeal. A foul stench assailed her nose, but she paid it no more mind than she did the sullen ceaseless pounding of that drum, _boom doom boom doom boom doom. _Ser Burnie and Matt were circling round her back, but Lindsay did not care. They could do as they wished with her; imprison her, rape her, kill her, it made no matter. She had lived too long, and everyone was waiting. It was Michael she feared for. "On my honor as a Tuggey," she told Lord Geoffrey. "On my honor as a Jones, I will trade your wife's life for Michael's. A husband for a wife." Her hand shook so badly she was ringing Griffon's head.

_Boom,_ the drum sounded, _boom doom boom doom. _

The old man's lips went in and out. The knife trembled in Lindsay's hand, slippery with sweat. "A husband for a wife,_ heh_." he repeated. "I could always find another one…and she never was much use."

A man in dark armor and a pale pink cloak spotted with blood stepped up to Michael. "The Mad King sends his regards." He thrust his long sword through her husband's heart, and twisted.

Michael had broken his word, but Lindsay kept hers. She tugged hard on Griffon's hair and sawed at her neck until the blade grated on bone. Blood ran hot over her fingers. Griffon's little bells were ringing, ringing, ringing, and the drum went _boom doom boom._

Finally, someone took the knife away from her. The tears burned like vinegar as they ran down her cheeks. Ten fierce ravens were raking her face with sharp talons and tearing off strips of flesh, leaving deep furrows that ran red with blood. She could taste it on her lips.

_It hurts so much,_ she thought. _Please, Michael, please…make it stop, make it stop hurting. _The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Michael had loved. Lindsay Jones raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. _It tickles._ That made her laugh until she screamed.

"Mad," someone said.

"She's lost her wits," And someone else said. "Make an end."

A hand grabbed her scalp just as she'd done with Griffon, and she thought, _No, don't, don't cut my hair, Michael loves my hair. _Then the steel was at her throat and its bite was red and cold.


End file.
